Day 4 - Senior Cruise 2013
From above we see thousands of sparkling stars, and from below we have thousands of phosphorescents interacting with our wake.
Watch 1 – Christina Ramirez
Good day all! Happy New Years Eve!
Woke up to another beautiful day! What a great way to celebrate a new year!
This is our second day in the open ocean and I still can’t believe how beautiful it is! I have been outside most of the day and have been hoping to see some sea life pop out and say hello, to no avail! We have been able to pull phytoplankton tow nets and look under the scopes to see the little guys of the sea. There have been some great copepods and radiolarians but today we came upon a beautiful blue labidocera (copepod). It was as blue as the sky. Amazing! I love looking at zooplankton; hence my project has to do with zooplankton abundance. How wonderful to be here to look at such wondrous sea life. It is truly an amazing experience for me and I am so thankful to be here.
Today, I was watch lead along with Nicolette. We had several projects to accomplish. My watch group was in charge of the casting of the CTD and it’s water samples and deploying an Argo Float right after. While Nicolette was in charge of the wave buoy, manta net and phytoplankton tow. Everything ran smoothly and I have become the “Water Boss”. I enjoy running the CTD and working with the crew.
To celebrate the New Year some of us will be out on the bow of the Thompson with glow sticks and noisemakers, others will be inside playing games and the rest will be celebrating in their dreams! However you celebrated the New Year, know there are about 48 people on a boat in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean celebrating the New Year also!
Cheers!!
Watch 2- Nicolette McCary
The seas are slightly up, and we are completely surrounded by blue water. Everywhere we look is either water or horizon. Because of the rough seas, seasickness is still plaguing a few of us, but we are distracting ourselves with pleasant conversations such as what to do if you were to fall overboard unnoticed. The debate is raging between saving energy by floating in the current, or actively swimming towards land. Currently, the swimming proponents argue it would be a bad idea to just float, as you might end up making endless circles in an ocean gyre. Both sides do however agree, that being stranded in the middle of the ocean at night would at least allow for some amazing experiences with the phosphorescent organisms we have been observing after sun down. And the debate may be void anyways, as we would likely just sink due to the copious amounts of amazing food we have all been eating. Lunch of homemade piled high pizzas, dinner of herbed pork, ice cream and carrot cake—we really stand no chance. As well, cheese-its made it into the snack area today...and lets just say they have been partaken in.
Science today ran the smoothest yet, as we have learned to communicate effectively and use all time wisely. For example, while Jake’s wave buoy was being recovered, Tianna was already prepared to deploy her manta net for use in collecting microplastics. Meanwhile, the CTD was cocked, checked, and ready to deploy. Compared to the low-key chaos of the first few days, we are running extremely effectively. There were two interesting findings today: Tianna found an insect in her tow—called a water strider. It is the only known insect to inhabit the open ocean. It strides across the surface of the water, and feeds on copepods in a similar manner to mosquitos. Most of us (girls) agreed they were creepy, as they look almost exactly like spiders. The second finding was from the deep CTD deployed to 1800m. There was an unexpected peak in Oxygen concentration at 620m. Colin theorizes that this constitutes a different water mass moving horizontally in the water column. The chemical properties of temperature, density, and salinity are similar to that of Antarctic Intermediate Water.
So far, we are ahead of schedule by around 10-15 hours because the Thompson is steaming at 1.5 knots faster than we expected. While everyone would love extra time for their operations, this is a blessing of a headache as we try to piece together a new cruise plan that works for all the nighttime sampling needs and small boat operations. Colin and Charlie have headed this up, with input from the 7 other students sitting around them providing emotional support as they do the real work of crunching the numbers.
As soon as we are done recalculating the plan, we will head out to the bow of the ship to look at the stars before ringing in the New Year in style with glow stick bracelets and poppers provided by the amazing Kathy Newell. Star gazing here is like nothing else we have every seen, as there is no light pollution whatsoever to limit the view. The moon doesn’t come up until around 4am, making the night sky even darker for observing the small stars that would normally be drowned in light pollution. From the three hammocks the crew strung on deck, Orion’s Belt is located directly above us, and shooting stars are anything but rare. From above we see thousands of sparkling stars, and from below we have thousands of phosphorescents interacting with our wake. All in all, seasickness aside, the cruise has provided an opportunity for us to learn how to manage our science onboard a Research Vessel, and get a taste for the exotic places we can go as oceanographers post-graduation.
Watch 3 – Rhys Lloyd
We were done with everything by 1:00 and so our group did not have watch. Besides that the coordination between groups 1 and 2 went well. There was a bit of a miscommunication for the CTD but was handled very well and the rest went quite smoothly. I took water samples at the Chorophyll max which was at a depth of 165 m. This depth was the deepest out of the stations I have sampled.
The weather was cloudy but still very hot and very humid. The ocean today was calmer than it was yesterday and it still has the beautiful dark blue color.
